Episodes
After our episode on the top 20 crypto coins by market cap, we got a lot of requests to do one for Defi as well. For that discussion, we brought in one of the foremost experts on Defi. Arthur0x went from being one of the earliest users and investors at Synthetix, Aave, and Kyber, to running the largest Defi-focused fund in all of Asia. Arthur0x https://twitter.com/Arthur_0x Defiance Capital https://twitter.com/DeFianceCapital Su Zhu https://twitter.com/zhusu Hasu...
Published 01/02/21
Today, I’m sitting down with Su Zhu, my friend and co-host, and Josh, of Orthogonal Trading. Josh is one of the biggest and most experienced options traders in crypto and joined us for a very interesting and wide-ranging conversation. Together, we touched on topics like how options work differences between options and futures Different strategies for using them in crypto as well as what Josh thinks about options trading platforms in Defi Resources: ...
Published 12/23/20
When our scheduled guest had microphone issues, Su and I decided to record an improvised episode for you guys instead. In this one, we go through all the coins in Coingecko's Top 20 by market cap and discuss our thoughts and predictions for them going forward. Su Zhu https://twitter.com/zhusu Hasu https://twitter.com/hasufl Our homepage and mailing list https://uncommoncore.co/podcast/
Published 12/11/20
Today, I’m not only joined by a very special guest, but the format of this episode is highly unusual as well! I interviewed the man who goes by the name @DegenSpartan on Twitter and who is one of the biggest and most enigmatic Defi investors there is. I have wanted to have him on for a long time, but there was one problem: DegenSpartan, or DS in short, is fully pseudonymous and did not even want to have his voice known. So we looked for a solution and ended up doing a text interview instead....
Published 11/13/20
Today, I sat down with Su Zhu, who is the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, as well as LightCrypto.  Light is a real crypto OG and one of the largest and most successful prop traders in this space.  We’ve known each other for two years now and I have tremendous respect for his skill and clarity of thought. He’s usually very secretive, so we are thankful that he has recorded his first-ever interview with us. In this conversation, we go very deep into the process and mindset of trading, as...
Published 10/23/20
Today, I’m sitting down with Su Zhu, my co-host and friend, to talk about the state of the crypto market and what he’s seeing on the horizon. Su is the CEO as well as Chief Investment Officer at Three Arrows Capital, one of the largest trading firms in crypto.  Just one thing before we dive in, we make no money from this podcast we do want to grow our audience. so please take the time to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps a lot with discovery. Thank you. Apple...
Published 10/08/20
Today, we bring you a special episode. This is actually Part II of an interview I did with Anna Rose of the Zero Knowledge Podcast, and Tarun Chitra of Gauntlet. We explore the rise of governance tokens by looking at Sushiswap as our case study. Part I has been released on the ZK podcast and you can find the link to it in the show notes. It's not necessary for you to follow along, but it was a great and very lively discussion and I still recommend you listen to it first. Finally, we...
Published 09/24/20
Today, Su and I talk to Will Price and Trent Elmore of YAM.finance. YAM launched last month as a mix between Yearn’s fair launch, Ampleforth's supply elasticity, and Compound’s on-chain governance. And while its launch was short-lived (it had to shut down from a bug only two days later), it inspired a whole wave of food coins that tried to replicate its initial success. In this episode, we explore what made YAM so successful and what might be in store for the future. Will Price...
Published 09/22/20
Today, I brought on Dan Robinson and Georgios Konstantopoulos, who are both research partners at Paradigm. Together, we explore the topic of MEV, or “Miner Extractable Value”. Blockchains like Ethereum have this dirty little secret that, while in most regards they are very decentralized, the ordering of transactions within a single block is actually completely in the hands of a single miner. They can insert their own transactions, rearrange those of users, or even censor them...
Published 09/20/20
For today’s episode, I sat down with Su Zhu to learn all about perpetual swaps. There’s probably not a person in crypto who has more authority on this topic than him. The first half of the episode serves as a general introduction to perpetual swaps, while in the second half, we explore how perpetual swaps are coming to DeFi and why they are the single biggest primitive that is still missing from the DeFi puzzle. While the episode can get pretty technical at times, we tried to follow a logical...
Published 08/27/20
We return for the second half of our interview with Andre Cronje, a long-time DeFi developer, and creator of Yearn Finance. You can think of Yearn as a smart bank account that automatically allocates your assets to different low-risk investment strategies that execute on the Ethereum blockchain. My co-host is Tarun Chitra, the CEO and founder of Gauntlet, a company that helps stress test the incentive structures and economics of cryptocurrency protocols, especially of DeFi protocols. In...
Published 08/21/20
This week, I - Hasu - talk to Andre Cronje, a long-time DeFi developer, and creator of Yearn Finance. You can think of Yearn as a smart bank account that automatically allocates your assets to different low-risk investment strategies that execute on the Ethereum blockchain. My co-host is Tarun Chitra, the CEO and founder of Gauntlet, a company that helps stress test the incentive structures and economics of cryptocurrency protocols, especially of DeFi protocols. We're releasing this...
Published 08/14/20
In this episode, Su and Hasu talk to Matt Castro and Brad Koeppen of CMT Digital, one of the longest-standing trading firms in crypto. Topics covered - What their firm does in crypto - What CMT thinks about DeFi - The rise of AMMs and their future - Why CMT co-founded the Chigaco DeFi Alliance - Why community-funded coins have performed better than VC-funded ones, and whether this trend will continue Su Zhu is the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital. Hasu is a cryptocurrency...
Published 08/10/20
In this episode, Su and Hasu are joined by James Prestwich, one of the leading technical experts and thinkers in this space. Topics covered: - What is Blockstream Liquid - The bug James found - Disclosure and aftermath - Sidechains, channels, plasma, and rollups - How Bitcoin isolates itself from innovation happening on other chains (recommended reading) - Bitcoin in DeFi Su Zhu is the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital. Hasu is a cryptocurrency researcher and writer. Together,...
Published 07/08/20
In this episode, Su and Hasu talk about decentralized finance (DeFi). Topics covered: - What DeFi means to Su - Why use DeFi over CeFi? - Is the current demand organic or subsidized by VC money? - Where users will allocate on the trust spectrum - The delicate dance between regulatory arbitrage & attracting talent and capital - The path to decentralization - Most important DeFi use cases today and in the future - How AMMs work and can be improved - The core building blocks of...
Published 06/24/20
In this episode, Su and Hasu talk about blockspace market mechanisms and EIP-1559. Read Hasu's analysis of EIP-1559 (w/ Georgios Konstantopoulos)  Topics covered: - what EIP-1559 is and the problems it solves - negative-sum vs zero-sum vs positive-sum proposals - reasons against EIP-1559 - what, if anything, can Bitcoin learn from EIP-1559 - impact on long-term security - how realistic perpetual issuance is in Bitcoin - elastic blocksize proposals in Bitcoin - lessons from the...
Published 06/16/20
Welcome to the first episode of the Uncommon Core podcast. Su and Hasu talk about the future of custody in crypto. Follow Su on Twitter Follow Hasu on Twitter
Published 06/08/20